Microsoft launches new messaging service to compete with Slack

Microsoft is fully committed to increase its presence in the business sector, even more after seeing the good results that the alliance between Apple and IBM seems to be giving, mainly in the United States. With this in mind I was surprised announcing a new product, however, it is no match for the aforementioned firms, if not for Slack.

Microsoft’s new product has received the descriptive name of Teams and is a digital workspace based chat, integrated with other applications and services specially designed for users of Office 365.

Microsoft Teams has been created to stand up to other platforms of collaborative work and chat like Slack or HipChat. To do this, Teams offers a chat interface that integrates with applications and services with Office 365, but also with other services developed by third companies like Zendesk, Asana, Hootsuite and Intercom.

As stated by the company, Microsoft Teams is designed with the idea of providing an “experience of modern conversation” in the workplace. It supports “persistent and threaded conversations” and also with both public and private conversations.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, Power BI and Delve are integrated into Microsoft Teams and are compatible with Groups Office 365. In this way, team members can spend easily and quickly from talks collaborate on documents.

Microsoft Teams is designed for enterprise customers of Microsoft and includes enterprise-level security with two-factor authentication, single sign-on through Active Directory and data encryption.

Microsoft Teams is available as a preliminary version for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and the web in 181 countries and 18 languages from enterprise customers for Office 365 (Business Essentials, Business Premium, El, E3 and E5). The official launch will take place early next year, the company has not yet specified a specific date.

Before Microsoft announced Teams, the platform competition, Slack, published a full-page ad in The New York Times welcoming Microsoft to chat space and offering some “friendly advice” while pointing, clearly ironic tone, which is very concerned about competition from Microsoft.

In the newspaper ad, which ends with a message saying that “Slack is here to stay,” the company says it is an open platform, and that love, reflection and craftsmanship are essential for a communication product be successful.